India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.

In January last year, Finnish company Fortum agreed to generate electricity in Rajasthan with a record low tariff, or guaranteed price, of 4.34 rupees per kilowatt-hour (about 5p).

Mr Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the IEEFA, said that at the time analysts said this price was so low would never be repeated. But, 16 months later, an auction for a 500-megawatt solar facility resulted in a tariff of just 2.44 rupees – compared to the wholesale price charged by a major coal-power utility of 3.2 rupees (about 31 per cent higher).

“For the first time solar is cheaper than coal in India and the implications this has for transforming global energy markets is profound,” Mr Buckley said. “Measures taken by the Indian Government to improve energy efficiency coupled with ambitious renewable energy targets and the plummeting cost of solar has had an impact on existing as well as proposed coal fired power plants, rendering an increasing number as financially unviable. India’s solar tariffs have literally been free falling in recent months.”

He said about it has been accepted that some £6.9bn-worth of existing coal power plants at Mundra in Gujarat were “no longer viable because of the prohibitively high cost of imported coal relative to the long-term electricity supply contracts”.

This, Mr Buckley added, was a further indication of the “rise of stranded assets across the Indian power generation sector”.

Investors from all over the world were showing an interest in India’s burgeoning solar sector. “The caliber of the global financial institutions who are bidding into India’s solar power infrastructure tenders is a strong endorsement of India’s leadership in this energy transformation and will have significant ripple effects into other transforming markets, as is already seen in the UAE, South Africa, Australia, Chile and Mexico,” Mr Buckley said.
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India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.

In January last year, Finnish company Fortum agreed to generate electricity in Rajasthan with a record low tariff, or guaranteed price, of 4.34 rupees per kilowatt-hour (about 5p).

Mr Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the IEEFA, said that at the time analysts said this price was so low would never be repeated. But, 16 months later, an auction for a 500-megawatt solar facility resulted in a tariff of just 2.44 rupees – compared to the wholesale price charged by a major coal-power utility of 3.2 rupees (about 31 per cent higher).

“For the first time solar is cheaper than coal in India and the implications this has for transforming global energy markets is profound,” Mr Buckley said. “Measures taken by the Indian Government to improve energy efficiency coupled with ambitious renewable energy targets and the plummeting cost of solar has had an impact on existing as well as proposed coal fired power plants, rendering an increasing number as financially unviable. India’s solar tariffs have literally been free falling in recent months.”

He said about it has been accepted that some £6.9bn-worth of existing coal power plants at Mundra in Gujarat were “no longer viable because of the prohibitively high cost of imported coal relative to the long-term electricity supply contracts”.

This, Mr Buckley added, was a further indication of the “rise of stranded assets across the Indian power generation sector”.

Investors from all over the world were showing an interest in India’s burgeoning solar sector. “The caliber of the global financial institutions who are bidding into India’s solar power infrastructure tenders is a strong endorsement of India’s leadership in this energy transformation and will have significant ripple effects into other transforming markets, as is already seen in the UAE, South Africa, Australia, Chile and Mexico,” Mr Buckley said.
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I was half listening to the radio a couple of days ago and the man was predicting a collapse in the car industry due to people switching to self driving electric vehicles. He maintained that this would be rapid and soon with the result that the demand for old fashioned cars would plummet and that people would share transport costs rather than use individual cars.

I am sounding garbled as I was not really paying attention and I don't have a link to the programme or the speaker.

I was half listening to the radio a couple of days ago and the man was predicting a collapse in the car industry due to people switching to self driving electric vehicles. He maintained that this would be rapid and soon with the result that the demand for old fashioned cars would plummet and that people would share transport costs rather than use individual cars.

I am sounding garbled as I was not really paying attention and I don't have a link to the programme or the speaker.

Hmm. Since electric cars are still cars - and pluggable hybrids are actually more complicated than regular cars - I would think that while the KIND of car they sell will change, the number will not - and with the increase in complexity, they will need even more designers/assemblers/programmers.

I was half listening to the radio a couple of days ago and the man was predicting a collapse in the car industry due to people switching to self driving electric vehicles. He maintained that this would be rapid and soon with the result that the demand for old fashioned cars would plummet and that people would share transport costs rather than use individual cars.

I am sounding garbled as I was not really paying attention and I don't have a link to the programme or the speaker.

Hmm. Since electric cars are still cars - and pluggable hybrids are actually more complicated than regular cars - I would think that while the KIND of car they sell will change, the number will not - and with the increase in complexity, they will need even more designers/assemblers/programmers.

They were definitely suggesting a switch from individual transport to some kind of a shared model. They even gave projected figures for overall transport miles which I think (if I recall well) dipped in the projection by about a factor of 3.

I am imagining they may have been thinking along the lines of people in cities using vehicles as some kind of driverless taxis in the same way that bicycles are in some places.

The number of cars would fall (as I heard it ) because the transport miles would fall for the same number of people making comparable journeys

As I say I only heard this in passing on the radio and I cannot go back and reference it.

We did get a crash in the car industry a few years ago with the economic crash we are just emerging from and perhaps they should be getting ready for a double dip.

Interesting your story about solar power . It is not good news for " Trump's" rust belt I would guess as they seem to fondly imagine a return to coal .

They were definitely suggesting a switch from individual transport to some kind of a shared model. They even gave projected figures for overall transport miles which I think (if I recall well) dipped in the projection by about a factor of 3.

I am imagining they may have been thinking along the lines of people in cities using vehicles as some kind of driverless taxis in the same way that bicycles are in some places.

The number of cars would fall (as I heard it ) because the transport miles would fall for the same number of people making comparable journeys)

As I say I only heard this in passing on the radio and I cannot go back and reference it.

We did get a crash in the car industry a few years ago with the economic crash we are just emerging from and perhaps they should be getting ready for a double dip.

Ah, that makes more sense. Although that isn't exclusive to electric vehicles; indeed, most research into autonomous vehicles has been performed in ICE cars.